Pennsylvania’s senators delivered the following message to the presidents of five Keystone State universities at the beginning of the academic year: Take steps to combat campus antisemitism.
“It is incumbent on all of us, especially our nation’s universities, to ensure vibrant Jewish life is not compromised or driven into the shadows,’’ Sens. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) and Dave McCormick (R-Pa.), wrote on Wednesday to the presidents of Lehigh University, Temple University, the Pennsylvania State University, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Pittsburgh.
The senators told them that they should work to “ensure all students, regardless of their race, ethnicity or shared ancestry, are safe and able to fully participate in campus life.”
The senators said these Pennsylvania universities, which have the highest number of Jewish students throughout the state, were not immune from the anti-Israel and antisemitic protests following the Hamas-led attacks on Oct. 7, 2023. Pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel students set up encampments on campuses and went after Jewish students, regardless of their position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“Jewish students have faced unprecedented hostility on university campuses,” the senators wrote. “Chabad houses have been vandalized, entrances to Hillel buildings have been targeted and Jewish students have been assaulted.”
In response, they said, Jewish institutions needed to increase spending on security.
“No student should feel like they must risk their safety to exercise their First Amendment rights to peacefully assemble and freely practice their religion,” the senators wrote. “No campus institution should have to curtail its services to cover security expenses.”
Lehigh and Penn are private institutions. Penn State, Temple and Pitt are public.
One of the campus presidents receiving the letters, J. Larry Jameson, who holds a medical degree and a Ph.D., succeeded Elizabeth Magill, who resigned as president of Penn in December 2023 after telling a House committee at the time that calling for the genocide of Jews did not necessarily violate the university’s code of conduct.
